Justified: "Good Intentions" Review

Baby, Justified's got a stew goin'!

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January 21, 2014

Note: Full spoilers ahead.

Poor Dewey Crowe. Dude hits the jackpot (I mean, he'd kind of earned it, but let's ignore that for a second), gets a huge cash settlement, and gets robbed on both ends. All he wants is an endless supply of prostitutes. Is that so much to ask?

Well, it is.

"Good Intentions" was all about cousins. The season-long friction rolled out, revealing a Boyd Crowder vs. Cousin Darryl fight for power on the lower tiers of crime in Harlan County. Dewey Crowe is caught in the middle of it as both Boyd and Darryl are good manipulators and Cousin Darryl won his heart and mind by the end of it when it was revealed Good Ol' Wade had been skimming off the top for Boyd. Meanwhile, Cousin Johnny Crowder has returned and was behind Boyd's botched deal. It could've been almost anybody on the other end of that line, but Johnny was a nice touch.

Boyd's turned quite the silver-tongued crime maven in Harlan County and as he struggles to grasp the power from Lee Paxton, his lower infrastructure begins to crumble. This is light-years more interesting than where we started this season and maybe one of the most interesting series arcs yet.

"Good Intentions" led us on to a much greater idea of where this season is going and proved to be a good conduit episode for the season. It wasn't thrilling or massively entertaining, but it was neat and tidy. It maintained the season stasis and threw in a couple of good twists and turns.

Jere Burns as Wynn Duffy.

Where they're going with Raylan and Allison is still up for grabs, but this episode had some fun with it. Allison is coming along nicely as a character and the ties within the episode to the already-happening arcs, of the house safe and the ex-con of who Allison had a history with, didn't have a hair out of place. It was clean, clever writing and there's more to come from that.

Whether or not Allison is "good" or "bad" is a fun idea to play with, since she's more or less a blank page right now... for us, anyway. I'm sure the writer's have a good idea. But Amy Smart is just the type of good ol' girl next door actress that can pull off that balance. A little pot use, even in front of Raylan, isn't exactly conniving, even if it is a little... casual. But to think she's nefarious enough to plant meth is enough to make her intentions questionable. If that's the case, is she really that much better than Raylan?

Speaking of which, the arc on Raylan this year seems to be a casual disregard of rules mixed with a lot of violence. His speech last week about the badge "making it legal" is a slight nod toward the direction of where this season is going and the use of a baseball bat and leading an admitted enforcer toward Wynn Duffy as a honeypot seem to confirm this. Whether this is enough to kick Raylan out of the Marshalls or just enough to skim the troubled waters is going to be fun to watch.

The development of characters in Season 5 is moving along and it takes a second or two to realize just how quickly this is all happening. Already we have Darryl on the scene with Danny (AJ Buckley) and Jean Baptiste (Edi Gathegi) and Mina and Allison seem to fit quite snug into the story as well.

As for Darryl, I'm still not sure if I like Michael Rapaport in this role, where his mannerisms and accent sometimes take me out of the episode, but my perception of Rapaport might be getting in the way too.

One thing that "Good Intentions" covered, and will make for something worthwhile this season, is Boyd's personal life season arc. There's an Orange is the New Black-type love problem here: "Ava in prison, Mina not in prison, hm. Which should I choose?" Boyd's temerity will definitely be played with this season and it's only a question of if he'll break or not. Will he turn to Mara and stray from Ava? Or will he walk the line?

Mara as a character has been "whatever" to this point - hanging around for some greater reason later on. She's proving her worth as a duplicitous manipulator of powerful people, just as Boyd and Darryl are, and even Boyd's having trouble not being seduced by her abilities. Maybe my favorite part of Mina is she's played by Aubrey Wood, who's actually from New Haven, Connecticut. [Update: Whoops, sorry about the Mina/Mara character/actress confusion. Actually, Boyd's new potential love interest being named Mara is oddly amusing for those of us who remember Walton Goggins and a different Mara on The Shield.]

"Good Intentions" won't be a particularly memorable episode, but it does line up with the rest of the series and provided a neat and tidy motivation for the season. That's what's needed right now. Things are moving, pieces are in place, and we're getting what we want. It's looking good.

The Verdict

"Good Intentions" led us on to a much greater idea of where this season is going and proved to be a good conduit episode for the season. It wasn't thrilling or massively entertaining, but it was neat and tidy. It maintained the season stasis and threw in a couple of good twists and turns.